


Sweet and Right and Merciful

by HarmonyLover



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Almost everyone is mentioned, F/M, This is seriously just shmoop y'all, i love these two so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 20:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20364970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarmonyLover/pseuds/HarmonyLover
Summary: Jack wakes up in bed with Sarah one morning, and knows. Modern AU.





	Sweet and Right and Merciful

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [rum-on-fire](https://rum-on-fire.tumblr.com/) for the Hozier lyric, in one of their posts. :) This was completely written on impulse, just for some sweetness.

**Chapter 1**

“sweet and right and merciful, i’m all but washed in the tide of her breathing” ~Hozier

Jack woke to the rosy light of dawn spilling in the bedroom window. His eyelids were heavy, but he felt warm and content, rested after what had been a long week of late nights and early deadlines.

He rolled over slowly to face his sleeping partner, and he caught his breath as he took in Sarah’s face in the morning light. She was always beautiful, and he never got over feeling awed by her, but there was something sacred about this. Seeing her asleep, knowing that she trusted and loved him enough to share her bed, to be so completely vulnerable with him, made his chest ache with painful happiness.

It wasn’t new. They had been friends since high school, when Jack had impulsively started a strike among the newspaper staff. When the administration and then the school district had tried to censor the paper’s articles on sexual education, HIV and AIDS prevention, and climate change, Sarah (who was the paper’s editor, the first female editor in the history of the high school) and Davey (who was the lead feature writer) had been furious. Jack had heard them talking about it during the lunch period and had boldly walked over to their table and proposed the idea of a student body strike against the administration. 

Sarah had scoffed at him, and David had immediately given him a laundry list of reasons why it was risky, since there was a mandated number of school days, students were minors and didn’t have a union, and parents could theoretically punish their kids for taking part. It would never work if it was just a few of them, he had said, and what were the chances they could get the entire student body on their side?

Jack had smirked at David’s naivete, and he proceeded to call over his entire group of friends and have them sit and listen to Sarah and Davey about the administration's censorship of the paper. Incensed by the unfairness (as he had known they would be), Crutchie, Blink, Mush, Specs, Skittery, Smalls, Boots, Racetrack, and Dutchy had immediately appointed themselves ambassadors to the rest of the student body, and within two days had most of the school on board. Spot and Plumber’s crew had been the hardest to win over (as Jack had known they would be), but he appealed to them himself, and they came in after the rest of the student body staged a day-long sit-in in the halls.

Mr. Denton, the paper’s advisor, had been incredibly skeptical at first, and shared Davey’s worries over the repercussions of a strike, but after the first day of the sit-in, the local media caught wind of what they were doing (thanks to some highly-circulated social media posts from Sarah and Davey) and the coverage brought support flooding in from local free speech groups and even the ACLU. Denton was all in after that, and did everything he could to support the striking students and advocate for them with the administration and the media.

They had won the fight, two weeks and one furious and humiliated school administration later, and Davey and Sarah had become Jack’s best friends from the strike forward. Jack had asked Sarah to junior prom at the end of that year, and they had been together ever since, six years and counting.

Jack had, at first, been floored by Sarah and David’s complete acceptance of him and his friends. He was a foster kid, and his adoptive mom and siblings, Medda and Crutchie and Smalls, were the only family he’d ever really had. The Jacobs were the complete opposite of what he had known as a little kid - stable, with two great parents and their obnoxious but cute younger brother, Les, who was one of the freshmen during the strike. But despite their initial doubt, they had embraced Jack as an ally and a friend, and had trusted his friends to do their part when they said they would. Jack had been staggered by their level of trust, when they barely knew him, and staggered even more by his own trust in them, which went against every bit of common sense he had.

And with Sarah, Jack had found himself telling her things - about his parents, about his childhood in foster care, about how he had come to Medda and she had slowly, slowly broken through his defenses - that he had never told anyone. Sarah accepted each little bit of him with kindness, and only seemed to love him more with every new thing she learned. She had given him back that trust, fully, telling him about her own childhood, her fears of not being good enough, of wanting to be more than just a pretty face and a good daughter, and Jack came to understand that she was driven not only by her fierce intellect, but by the need to prove herself, to be more than most people expected her to be. 

She gave him peace, and compassion, and loved him fiercely, and Jack tried - oh, he tried, with everything he was - to give those same things to her, every day. 

Jack had been watching Sarah sleep while he thought, and now he reached out and gathered her against him, putting one arm and a leg over her body and pulling her close. She sighed and nestled her head against him, winding her arm around his before her eyes drifted open.

“Morning, Cowboy,” she murmured, smiling, and Jack smiled back, leaning over and kissing her eyelids and the tip of her nose before pressing a soft kiss to her lips.

“Mornin’, beautiful,” he said. 

“How long have you been awake?”

“Not long,” Jack said quietly. “Maybe ten minutes. Just enjoying being in our bed with you. Thinkin’ about how much I love you.”

Sarah’s eyes grew brighter and somehow softer, and she reached up and cupped his cheek. “I love you, too. Always, Jack.”

Jack kissed her again, soft and slow, and Sarah responded in kind, her mouth tender against his. When they finally broke apart, needing to breathe, Jack leaned his forehead against hers and spoke what was in his heart.

“Sarah,” he whispered, “will you marry me?”

Sarah went still underneath him, and drew back from him just a little, so that she could see his face. “Are you serious?”

“I’ve never been so serious about anything in my life,” Jack said, caressing her face with his hands. “I love you. I want to be yours forever. I want us forever, Sarah. I want to love you, and learn with you, and grow with you, as long as we’re both breathin’. You make me so happy, and I can’t imagine life without you in it.”

Sarah’s eyes had filled with tears as he talked, and she gave a little sob as he finished and then leaned up and kissed him. 

“Of course I will,” she said, her voice choked. “I love you with all my heart, Jack. All you had to do was ask.” 

Jack kissed her back, deeply, and Sarah put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, cradling his body against hers. 

“I didn’t mean to ask like this,” he murmured between kisses. “I’ve had a ring for you for weeks - those reservations we have for this weekend? I was going to ask you then. But I just - couldn’t wait anymore.”

Sarah smiled against his lips. “We’ll just make that our newly-engaged dinner,” she said. “This was perfect, Jack. I can’t imagine anything more beautiful, and I love you even more for asking because it felt right. I love you.”

“Nothin’ feels more right than this,” Jack said, kissing her again. “I love you, too.” 

After that, neither of them needed words for a long time.


End file.
